I’ve never, legitimately, owned a firearm. I was never legally wedded, though I lived with her seventeen years and had a daughter with her … pets, plants, all kinds of pets. We were all pets about the place, I suppose. I didn't mind cleaning all their shit, though it was a thankless job and didn't pay any ... not even kindness or good-will.

I didn’t get any degrees or certifications beyond a high school diploma. Never, legitimately, bought a car or a home though the record might show I had gotten a loan on and paid off the BMW 325i; around the same time, I had bought a three-bedroom townhouse in the gated community of Aventura, FL called “Sailboat Bend.”

Much later, I think all of that was some perverse sense of "fairness" from my parents ... my father's ongoing affairs with women spilling into buying them homes and cars, too. I've always been the one they used to wash their hands of it, I guess. I pieced it together. I did have the assurance that my mom had hired a private investigator along the way, so, whatever I had imagined did have documentation and evidence.

It's not really the point -- what really happened. That was never anyone's concern, and my thirst to "know" really was just for my own edification since not even my closest friends or lovers ever believed me ... or, really, it only mattered to them that there would be hand-outs of cash-money indulgences.

Everyone of the Caribbean on every side, really exploited all the guilt. Everyone in that generation, ultimately, felt themselves justified and much, much better than God-himself, though they all think each other a jack-ass. I don't blame them.

Now, while I never “legitimately” owned a firearm, a few found themselves in my possession. I never fired one, though. I never had the occasion or the chance (much less any know-how or practice) to have been able to get a shot off.

The day I rolled into the strip mall in North Miami and brought out the load I had accumulated from my dad’s arsenal, there was an orgy of boys – mostly dishonorably discharged or, just doing their thing in Margaritaville – showing me how to operate them – the pistol and the shotgun. They were very happy to play with the weapons. It was some other kind of male lust … none of which I ever managed to indulge in.

A few weeks later, a sheriff from Broward County was typing into a laptop at my parents’ place – closing up a detail.

I told him I had sold all the weaponry somewhere in Georgia for gas money … but I hadn’t. Instead, I inviteid my dad to reclaim his pistol, shotgun and rifle, but, as far as anyone was concerned, those firearms disappeared somewhere in Georgia.

I don’t think I had become aware yet that Marvin Gaye was shot dead by his father from a pistol he had gifted him. I suspect, even still, my father has a chamber loaded just for me in one of those guns off the grid. I wouldn’t blame him. I ‘ve been an aweful son to him.

The other gun that came into my possession resulted from some weird combination of a loan and a drug deal and a guy I had recently returned from a road trip to Mardi Gras with. It was handed to me in a hardshell case, and I kept it in my nightstand for several years. I thought … if I’m really in a hurry to surrender to la lucha, the struggle – there it was: same place I kept a large ashtray – the top drawer of my nightstand.  I had surrendered to la lucha several years prior. I’m no hero. All I know is that a three-day coma feels almost like blinking, or it felt, as it were, like all of the eternity that had occurred before my birth. So, there was the handgun if I wanted to expedite oblivion.

But, at some point … someone I had assigned to look over my home and my pets while I was on vacation … well, somewhere in that, the pistol in my night drawer dissapeard.

I never asked any of those who had keys to my place. Frankly, I was more concerned that they’d use it on themselves, though I think they had all conspired to do me a service. I’d already grown inured to the idea that fate oughtta decide my time of dying. I don’t think whomever took that gun – well-meaning, sure – really thought it through.

Wasn’t my issue any longer … none of that. I've moved on from all that.

Really, I think, a lot of people I've loved and/or who have, presumably, loved me are still under the opinion that I might fold one day. If they don’t think that of me, then they, at least, can attest that I had folded; and, so, really, I don’t blame them for thinking me undeserving a place on this Earth or if they don't care too much for me outside not being the one to ruin Christmas this year ... I don't blame them, but really, I think them more pre-dead (or in the waiting room in perpetuity) … and I feel sorry for them out of, really, the most obnoxious perspective possible.

I’m prescribed a lot of medicines. I’ve even been prescribed a dog. I’ve looked into the city code, and, turns out, I turned out a pretty well-behaved and “good” citizen. In addition, both of my grandmother's, at some point said to me, point blank -- as an adult, having known both their love well into my mid-30s -- "You turned out good, kid."

So, ya know: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯